Friday, July 31, 2015

I write this post to say that for everyone in #Gamergate, congrats, you're on the winning team.

A year ago, things looked bleak. A year ago, social justice warriors held most of the media by the balls, trying to sell them on the idea that all gamers were evil, sexist assholes who hate women and don't want them in the industry.

To be honest, we only wanted one woman (Zoe Quinn) not exactly out, but taken to task for her collusion with game reviewers in exchange for positive coverage without disclosing the COI, and it prompted a backlash.

Why? BECAUSE GAMERS STRUCK A NERVE.

The nerve we struck was one where the gaming press had become an arrogant body unto themselves that didn't believe their mandate was simply to report on gaming culture. Instead, they felt they could abuse their power to shape gaming culture and this arrogance had corrupted them into doing corrupt things, and all those who kicked off Gamergate caught them with their pants down.

Their counterattack was simply taking a preexisting social justice issue, marrying it to the core issue of Gamergate (corruption and favoritism in the gaming press), and the result was charlatans like Anita Sarkeesian and their associated ilk coming out of the woodwork to accuse all their opponents of hating women, when the truth is more simple: all of them were, to some greater or lesser degree, either complicit with the corrupt assholes Gamergate was calling out, or were simply using the conflict for personal gain in related areas (such as Randi Harper trying to disrupt the FreeBSD community and pervert it into a platform for her gender politics).

For the first couple of months, Gamergaters had it rough, cause, like it or not, most of the antis were rich, smooth talking bastards with the right connections who were quite good at circling the wagons, and had most of the media snookered into buying the bullshit story gamers are evil misogynist bastards.

However, the bullshit story they were selling started breaking up almost immediately because they had very little evidence to prove it or were using clearly faked incidents and selling them as legitimate (Brianna Wu, no offense, Jace Conners was a troll at your expense, not a serious threat to your life, please stop selling a story even r/GamerGhazi wouldn't buy as legitimate). Further, the opposition underestimated the power of the internet to record their lies, hypocrisy, and bullshit, and even after they tried burning evidence, they learned much too late most of the gamers they were shitting on were very tech savvy and saved copies of everything.

Recently, Gamergate has been scoring bloody blows against the liars and con artists of the anti-GG side, thanks to reporting by Breitbart (an unlikely ally I admit, but I'm not complaining) ripping the veil off many of their senior leaders, the decimation of Gawker, parent company of corrupt gaming shill rag Kotaku, and the fact now people in high places have seen both Gamergaters and their foes for what they really are, and have decided to side with the gamers, as they realized something that's been true of gamers all along:

We don't give a crap what your politics are, we welcome everyone who likes games to pick up a controller and have some fun. Further, gamers, not social justice warriors, are the people who buy, play, and enjoy games.

So Gamergaters, rejoice, we're on the downslope now, just remember to never stop exposing the liars on the other side and showing the world the real monster, if there is one, is not those of us who claim the title gamer.

And for our opposition, I have only this to say:

If you ever decide to abandon your hatreds and realize we gamers are not the enemy, we will happily declare peace with you, but the choice to do so is yours, as we've been defending ourselves since this whole mess began, we just hope you are honorable enough to cease fighting a war we want to end, preferably on terms where everyone can get along and have fun.

Update; An apparent MRA posted a comment in response to this post (now deleted), and I have one message for all of them: You are not welcome in Gamergate. You are leeches hijacking Gamergate for your own ends, and I denounce everything you stand for, as I do not hate women, I merely oppose liars and believers in BS.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Based on my current progress with my RM VX Ace project, it's about halfway finished, and now I want to look back on my work a little and go over some of my trials and tribulations in doing so:

* I learned a lot more about copyright - Given my work is a fan remake of a commercial game, I use some content from the original for parody/fanfiction purposes, though I have been attempting to fill in blanks wherever possible with my own work on content I can acquire full licenses to use, and even though I've seen Dragon Quest fan projects made up entirely of stock assets from the games themselves, I've been trying to make at least 80% of my game original, and as I stated in the credits for my game, my fan game is meant to honor and promote the originals, classics I'm sure my pale imitation will never meet or exceed in quality, and Square Enix and any other parties I have used licensed assets from will have my full cooperation in the event of legal disputes, and to keep my project from being damaging to their properties, I again repeat my promise this project will always be free and I will never authorize anyone else to make a profit off of it without legal permission from the copyright owners, because as a fan, I want people to buy the original games so that more Dragon Quest titles might be produced.

* I've learned a lot more about coding - While I'm no expert Ruby coder by any means, RM VX Ace had taught me quite a bit about how it works, and while I'm still laughably poor at writing my own code, I'm fairly decent at tweaking it and bug testing it now.

* I've learned game development is not for the lazy - Game development is a tedious process. You can't just throw crap at the wall and give people what sticks. You have to bugtest that crap on the wall, make sure it all works, and make sure it all sticks in the right places.

* I've learned making a game is something you do for others as much as yourself. - Game development can be good for the ego, as you are essentially a god of your own little world, but it's not just a self centered ego trip. You also make a game for your intended audience, and that means if they say it needs work, you bust your ass to get it right so they enjoy it as much as you do.

* I've learned it's a labor of love - Game development is, as mentioned earlier, tedious, but if you stick with it, the rewards are more than worth it.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Now, I've heard a lot people who subscribe to Anita Sarkeesian's views on feminism, Brianna Wu included, say this trope is terrible, overused, and it makes women little more than objects robbed of agency for male empowerment.

I disagree, and in the latest beta of my own game (which can be found here), I decided to take those arguments and refute them.

Dragon Quest 1 (which my game is a loose remake of) had a totally cliche "kill dragon, save princess" quest, and the princess was little more than a plot coupon you had to collect, but ironically, I don't see anyone who subscribes to Sarkeesian's views taking a trip in a time machine and giving this game any grief.

In their defense, games were just coming out of their infancy and the trope wasn't as done to death, but if it's terrible all the time, why wasn't it maligned?

Well, in my remake version, I take the quest and the alleged horrible trope and turn it on it's head.

When you finally get to the dragon, he's not just some faceless goon you have to kill. He's got a name and swore loyalty to the Dragonlord, and even warns you crossing him means he'll have to kill you. In that respect, you and he are ideological enemies and you're enemies as a result, but otherwise he's just doing his job, as are you.

Once you get past him, you meet the princess, who confirms she was well treated despite being a captive, and here's where I tear apart the Sarkeesian arguments.

For starters, the princess decided to make use of the fact she was trapped to do strength training and hone her magical skills so she could no longer be a captive, as the event only inspired her to want to rise above being powerless. The dragon didn't care so long as she didn't try to escape, not knowing she was planning on attempting to take him out not long before you saved her the trouble.

Further, she is PISSED she was put through this trope and wants to avoid being powerless by joining your party and giving the Dragonlord a piece of her mind. Characters Mara and Sarah don't really protest since they had a hand in training her and know she is competent, so she asks your hero Roto if he has a problem with her not being a damsel in distress anymore and being a badass princess instead.

You can respond by either (A) giving her the classic "let me protect you/I'm worried about your safety" lines and she gets annoyed you are treating her as incapable or (B) you can accept her help and welcome her aboard, which earns her respect, since you aren't treating her like a helpless woman.

In this case, I played the trope straight like the original game, but I ended it in ways that don't reinforce what I feel are flawed arguments by Sarkeesian.

My point is that being a Damsel In Distress does not have to be a bad trope, and you can go through the motions of it's key points if you want and the result does not have to be a male empowerment fantasy, despite what Anita Sarkeesian may say otherwise.

For those not aware, the Kiwi Farms is a forum for mocking people who have made fools of themselves on the Internet, and while I don't sanction or condone their activities, I do appreciate any moral support their members have expressed, but I want to make something explicitly clear to both them and Twitter:

My intentions were not to harass. All I wanted to do, while I admit I'm critical of Brianna Wu's work, was hopefully to establish a dialogue with Brianna Wu, and maybe even get some answers on questions I had. I'm not very sanguine on her work, but I was hoping I might learn more via direct discussion and possibly get some misconceptions cleared up.

At no time did I ever bring up any matter that was not already public record (I did not dox or reveal information that was private, and when asked not to pursue certain matters I complied and merely advised Ms Wu to sue for libel if certain publicly available information on the news site Breitbart about Ms. Wu was false and I was misled, as no one deserves to be defamed), my intentions were never to be cruel, hateful, insensitive, or bigoted, and I was hoping we could both walk away from the discussion having learned more from one another and possibly clear up any misunderstandings.

That blew up in my face, I had calls for being banned as a result, and since it was becoming obvious my mere presence was offensive to Ms. Wu and her followers, I publicly promised to stay away in more than one tweet, and I fully intend to honor that promise, should Twitter ever unsuspend (at the time of this writing) my suspended account, I even denounced the message I got in that email and made it clear in my tweets I denounced harassment, death threats, or any other offensive actions to Brianna Wu, and will continue to do so.

I have no brief with Ms. Wu in many areas, but she is a human being entitled to respect and dignity regardless of any opinions I or others may hold, and I reiterate my promise to leave her and her followers in peace, because I want my motives crystal clear.

Also, based on what I can glean from my own tweets, I may have been overly aggressive in my tweets, and if so, I apologize to both Ms. Wu and Twitter for doing so. If I pressed on certain matters I shouldn't have, I again apologize to both, and if either require a public statement of apology, they have it here and now:

If I have committed any offense to either Brianna Wu or Twitter, I apologize for those offenses, and will perform whatever redress Twitter deems appropriate.

Note; For reasons of transparency, I have sent a link to this post to relevant parties on Twitter, including as a reply in my suspension appeal, as I want to assure them my promise to do whatever I must to be unsuspended is not hollow, and that I stand by my word.

Gamergate has been accused of a lot of evil, malicious things, things that recently have been proven untrue,. as Gamergate led the charge against Gawker on Twitter with mass emails to their advertisement sponsors to yank support in response to Gawker's publishing of libelous content meant only to destroy someone under pretenses involving extortion, all for the sake of page clicks.

As Gamergate opposes corruption in the press, and since Gawker is the parent company of Kotaku, a gaming site rife with corruption, I and many others joined our efforts to expose Gawker for what they were to the public so that their corruption would be their downfall.

However, not everyone uses Twitter for good:

http://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/

This Tumblr documents all sorts of corrupt uses of Twitter to silence, persecute, harass and denigrate anyone supportive of Gamergate, here's some horrifying examples:

https://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/post/101754835501

This basically saying "harassment is okay when WE do it to Gamergaters"

LIKE HELL IT IS! No one deserves harassment on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/danv2/status/521652663503843328

This guy wants to see all Gamergaters rot in prison and die of prostate cancer.

Brianna Wu, a woman who I tried to show respect to on Twitter, well, this doesn't seem to go both ways, as she called someone (in a now deleted tweet) "a gross fucking aspie"

Ms. Wu, I have Aspergers, and I am shocked and horrified you could be so bigoted against those with that condition, and on behalf of all with the same, I'd like to apologize for that comment since I doubt she will.

This post proposes all gamers should be murdered, a proposition I not only am sickened by, but I definitely say no Gamergaters has ever claimed our opposition should be murdered, and I'm disgusted Twitter still hosts such blatant hatred against my fellow gamers.

This is basically telling all gay people they are traitors who deserve to die if they support Gamergate, and not only is that just pure, distilled bigotry against someone for their ideology, it's also an attack on someone sexual orientation, saying it's only okay to be gay unless you hold certain beliefs, and if you don;t agree, you deserve to die.

That is offensive and discriminatory beyond words, and to all gay people maliciously maligned by this commentary, you have no idea how sorry I am that someone posted such foul hatred about you all.

http://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/image/101792446854

This is basically a call for the crimes perpetuated by Nazi regime on their enemies to be done to all gamers simply for being gamers, and the fact such blatant calls for another Holocaust were posted with such gleeful abandon only makes me wonder what kind of depraved stain could exist on someone's soul to want to sanction another genocide simply due to pure spite.

I could go on and on, but I want to make an appeal to Twitter:

Gamergaters do not harass, we do not threaten, we do not denigrate, we do not call for the deaths of others, we do not sanction the persecution of those who oppose us, and we utterly condemn all the above as beyond the pale, and I'm begging you, please ask yourself if you really want people who post such foul spite to continue to patronize your service.

Seriously, this is loathsome and despicable, and I mourn for everyone who has had to endure such hatred from these patrons of Twitter, and I ask Twitter do the right thing by all those who are the real victims of harassment, death threats, and persecution, as we Gamergaters want to be a benefit to Twitter.

And all we ask is that those who use your service to spread bigotry and hatred no longer be allowed to promulgate such vile messages via your service.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

In this post, I'm going to write about why I like Breitbart columnist Milo Yiannopoulos, and since I adore his deadpan snarky style, I shall try to imitate it here, and while imitation is usually the highest form of flattery, I would not blame him if that didn't turn him on.

I am a liberal after all.

On that subject, he's very conservative, but I admire how for a conservative how much he's willing to tolerate his critics, even to the point of retweeting people who believe he needs to have his sexy head of hair shaved off and shoved down his throat until he dies of asphyxiation.

Me, I think that's a highly inefficient way to kill a guy who dies after half a dozen hits to the face with a dildo in Postal 2: Paradise Lost (yes, you can kill Milo in the game, or even urinate on his face if you like while he bitches about "not being into that"), but to each their own.

Regardless, I have found him very charming and openminded for a man whose opinion of Barack Obama is cool disdain at best, but to his credit, he does favorite the tweets of people who call him an asshole, so at least he's self aware.

Milo is also blessed with a sense of humor. On top of allowing you to blow his head off with a shotgun and piss on his severed limbs in Postal 2, he also takes humorous self depreciating takes at himself, mocking his own tendency to be a wanker and his preference for wanker. He also is an unashamed snob, but he's a very self aware snob, and even if you want to watch him die painfully for having his nose so far up in the air he can sneeze on the moon, one has to admit he's rather witty and charmingly snarky as he does so.

Milo also has more integrity as a journalist than I would have expected, given his profession is filled with assholes, shitheads, and utter bastards, and even though I just described the now rightfully disgraced writing team of Gawker, Breitbart comes off much better for having Milo as a writer, because, as mentioned earlier, he admits his asshattery, shitheadedness, and bastardry, and when you can be an openly gay pisstaking stone conservative smartass and still get a liberal hetereosexual who tries to be courteous to everyone when possible to like you so much your adoration turns borderline homoerotic for the former, you must be doing something right.

Finally, before this brain-fart turns into a love letter so sappy Milo could use it on his morning waffles, I just wanted to reiterate I like the writing Milo has done, especially as pertains to Gamergate, and I look forward to more of his work.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

As much as I have screamed to the heavens how I hate Social Justice Warriors, social justice itself is a noble cause, it's just been perverted by Twitter harpies, Tumblrinas, and shifty entitled assholes in ivory towers bitching about first world problems like offensive code strings or fictional female shaped pixels.

This is my feelings on all that:FUCK YOU, WHAT ABOUT ACTUAL WOMEN WHO SUFFER?!

There are countries on this planet where women have no agency, no rights, and no dignity. There are women who are literal slaves to men, who can be beaten, murdered, raped, and tortured, and they cannot defend themselves. These poor souls are in situations where they can be clubbed to death simply asking for a sip of water if a man doesn't want them to, and it pisses me the fuck off most of the psuedo-feminists above can only rant about "manspreading" and "oh no, Princess Peach is a helpless damsel!"

FUCK YOU, ACTUAL WOMEN ARE SUFFERING AND YOU DON'T GIVE A GODDAMN SHIT!

Most of these assholes live in countries where they are free to bitch and have access to law enforcement, legal and medical resources, and all sorts of support groups, and they don't give a shit about the women who have none of this and live every fucking day in terror and misery.

Frankly, as a feminist myself, I want to see those girls who want to read in countries where they are getting killed for it protected and allowed to learn. I want to see the men who can keep women as literal slaves, especially for sex, I want to see them broken and powerless, so they can know what atrocities they visited on their victims. I want every woman without the freedom to even lift their head without punishment for doing so to live in a world where they can raise their heads without fear.

And most of all, I want to see the women who could get off their asses to do something for them shut the fuck up about first world bullshit and help those women who are truly suffering from misogyny.

If they did that, I might be more inclined to take their bitching about video games and crude sexual advances by males a little more seriously.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Almost everyone has heard of "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, but for those who haven't, here's the basics:

A lawyer named Atticus Finch has to defend a black man accused of rape in the pre-Civil Rights South, and despite all the pressure on him to do the wrong thing and sell out his own client, he still tries to defend the man against an obviously corrupt and false charge, loses, but does so anyway despite the spite of his peers and the cultural values of his time. And we see all this through the eyes of his daughter.

It's a classic work of literature, and I still consider it a great book.

Recently, an unofficial followup that was never released was found and was tidied up for publication called "Go Set a Watchman", and while calling it a sequel is a stretch since some of it's plot points contradict the original text of TKAM, what has SJWs crying foul is the fact a grown up version of Finch's daughter discovers her father, who she saw as a hero, had been a bigot himself during the time of TKAM, and learns his morally correct deed was an aberration for his time, despite the fact he taught her to see such moral action such as the one he took for his client as normal and just.

Me, I don't see why they are so upset.

Let's say Atticus Finch really had been a bigot who thought less of black people during TKAM. Let's say the heroism seen through the eyes of a child was the exception and not the rule. Does that make him any LESS of a heroic figure?

No, and here's why.

In TKAM, Atticus was under a lot of pressure to do the wrong thing and sell out his client despite the obvious fact his client was innocent. The jury was biased, the accuser was full of shit but liked by the jury due to their racism, and if we take GSAW's characterization of Atticus at face value, his own personal biases heavily slanted against him doing the right thing.

However, Atticus took a stand. He defied his peers, who wanted a black man to suffer for a crime he did not commit simply because he was black. He defied a jury that wanted their prejudice confirmed by calling them out on wanting him to make it easy on them and let them screw over an innocent man without pointing out their hypocrisy. He put his integrity as a lawyer on a higher pedestal than his respect amongst others to do what was morally and legally just, and if we take GSAW at face value, he even defied his own personal bigotry to better honor his oath to defend his client to the best of his abilities and to take a stand for honesty despite all the reasons he could have not done so and not suffered for it.

Even if Atticus Finch wasn't the fictional paragon of virtue TKAM made him out to be and GSAW revealed he was imperfect, he still made a decision that required moral integrity despite his culture and his own personal beliefs militating against it and still took a stand for truth.

And for those reasons, Atticus Finch is even MORE a paragon of moral heroism, assuming GSAW's retroactive characterization has any truth to it, because it adds one more reason why his actions in TKAM are still worthy of praise.

And if SJWs are mad because GSAW tarnishes their idealized portrait of their fictional paragon, they can shove it, because in reality, no one human is ever that perfect, but for a fictional hero, Atticus Finch did the right thing where he had every reason not to, and the fact he refused to sell out morality and honor to a mob he may have very well sympathized with still makes him a hero in my book.

And my only wish is that the SJW crowd takes notes and follows his example.

Monday, July 6, 2015

It's that time again, when I rant and bitch about something that makes me mad, so if you want to avoid a ton of cursing and rage, skip this post.

Anyway, I recently learned Tumblr has spawned yet another group of degenerate shitheads whose abortions would have been a public service, known as "lifters", short for shoplifters.

Basically, fucking criminals who glorify stealing shit because it gives them a cheap thrill and because they have no respect for the law, not to mention are too lazy to earn money to support the economy they are fucking over without any goddamned shame.

I've seen these fucking blogs, these piss stains in the underwear of society have the fucking balls to gloat about stealing shit, posting photos of all the crap they have lifted and patting each other on the ass and telling each other how awesome they are.

YOU'RE GODDAMNED THIEVES, YOU SOULLESS FUCKS, YOU'RE NOT ANYONE WHO DESERVES ANYTHING OTHER THAN TIME IN PRISON!

Nothing pisses me off more than a bunch of fucking assholes who are glorifying crimes in public and expect to be asspatted and treated like special snowflakes for it, and on the Tumblr hierarchy, they are the lowest you can get when it comes to be regarded as worthy of dignity.

Yiffers generally aren't criminals (even if they are the types the more sane furries find abhorrent). Cloppers (the depraved brony offshoot most bronies are embarrassed by) can get just as disgusting as fyiffers but the same usually applies. Fuck, even the people who beat off to shotacon and lolicon aren't breaking laws so long as it's legal where they live and they don't harm actual kids.

However, these cumrags are doing something I know is a crime no matter what part of the planet you live on, and so I end my little rant with a request.

Report these shitheels, scan every bit of EXIF data and metadata from their photos and report it to the authorities. Send Tumblr's staff tons of emails about how they need to shut down these blogs and report their owners to law enforcement and turn over IP data and whatever else the police may need to teach these sacks of shit crime does not pay and they are complete and utter monsters for glorifying theft.

Friday, July 3, 2015

Why? Because I made a very foolish rookie coder mistake when working on my current game project that has made every build since the errors were introduced have game breaking bugs, and it was because of foolish oversights on my part.

The issue was that the minigame scripts I used for my ingame casino lacked sane exit conditions for the scene window script they were intending to alias, and it caused my entire project to be retroactively corrupted.

Aliasing in Ruby code (which RM VX Ace uses) means code that does one thing is rerouted to an alias, or alternative. For instance, if I aliased the word "apple" to be rendered "orange" in a program determining how many uses of the words apple and orange were in a block of text, all it would result in finding nothing but uses of "orange', since "apple" was aliased to render as "orange".

This is fine, but if an alias is not sanely terminated when you need the program to render "apple" as "apple", it will continue to render "orange" even when you need "apple", which will retroactively screw up everything afterwards since the aliasing never terminated sanely, so everything using the original code will be horribly screwed up.

In that sense, I own myself an ass, because I did not check to make sure the minigame scripts I imported sanely terminated the aliasing for their custom window scenes and reverted back to the stock settings, which was causing all sorts of anomalies in the display of all window scenes afterwards, and while some errors were not immediately apparent, I should have exercised due diligence to make sure the alias terminated sanely, since that would not be easily detected at first since aliasing does not ordinarily cause game crashes if it affects non vital code, such as the rendering of window boxes.

I have fixed the issues and confirmed them resolved, but this was a mistake I made due to lack of adequate back checking of the scripting calls, and I advise anyone importing any script into their game that uses aliasing of stock code make sure the alias terminates sanely, else your game will retroactively be corrupted in terms of functionality.